When I caught my breath and stopped whimpering, his grin returned. “F-fuck y-you.”
“No, that will never happen, cusca. I have so much more planned for you, and none of it includes the pleasures of the flesh.” The madman turned his back to me. While he did whatever the fuck it was he was doing, I turned to look at Raoul. The man stood stoically to the side, hands clasped behind his back.
“You,” I growled. “You’re just a puppet with Cuchillo’s hand up your ass, directing everything you do and say.” Raoul’s eyes slid to mine, blazing with fury. Good. “You’re just as much a cusca as I am. He’s fucking you and you don’t even know it.” I knew the word for whore in Spanish and I hoped to get a reaction out of the man. I laughed at Raoul and he snapped. Two strides and he was on top of me, his huge hands around my neck.
“You listen to me, puta. I will crush your throat with my bare hands and fuck your dead body,” he snarled.
“Alto!” El Cuchillo’s loud command made both Raoul and me freeze in place. “Estoy hasta la madre!” He was shooting daggers at Raoul. The big man dropped his hands and stepped back to his original position.
I laughed so hard I became almost hysterical. “See? I told you. You’re just a bitch like me. A goddamn whore puppet with a cock instead of a pussy.”
Raoul growled and made a move toward me again. El Cuchillo stepped up and Raoul stopped dead. His furious glare bounced back and forth between his boss and me. Eventually, Raoul dropped his gaze first and returned to his spot once more. I giggled.
“So funny, isn’t it?” Cuchillo asked, his voice dripping with condescension. “You won’t be laughing after today, whore.” He lifted an arm and brandished a knife. A big, sharp, shit-inducing knife. For the first time since I got here, real, hair-raising, blood-curdling fear penetrated to my very bones.
My heart was beating so fast I was afraid it might burst through my battered and beaten ribcage and take flight. I hadn’t struggled against my bindings since the first day. It was pointless and all it did was feed the bastard’s excitement and tire me out. My pride left the room. I sure as fuck struggled now. Faced with that wicked blade, I fought as hard as I could. The handcuffs dug into my wrists and tore at the thin skin. Fire ripped through my arms and joints as blood dripped onto my hands.
Cuchillo came closer but my eyes never left that knife. I shrieked and thrashed, the cuffs going deeper into my wrists. At this point, the shooting pains down my shoulders to my hands were merely a secondary concern. My chest heaved as the knife hovered over the dip in my collarbone.
Blinking back the sweat dripping into my eyes, I glanced up at El Cuchillo. The fucking bastard was smiling. He was li
terally getting off on my fear. Feeding on my terror. Every scream was pleasure, every jerk against the cuffs a sultry stroke that brought him closer to satisfaction, every whimper a lover’s word whispered in his ear.
Fuck him.
I stopped struggling and forced my muscles to relax. It took every bit of strength I had—strength I’d earned from years of abuse at the hands of my mother, from scraping and working my fingers to the bone to support myself and Cat in our apartment, from the six months I was kept as Mason’s whore and drug addict—to lift my chin and lock my eyes onto the dark ones of my captor.
“Kill me. I don’t care. You’re a sick fuck. Go ahead and do it, but I’ll never break.”
His brow furrowed and his lip curled into a furious sneer.
“We’ll see about that, puta. We’ll see.”
5
Jag
The most recent video from Cuchillo sent me flying into a fucking wrecking ball of rage. I was so out of my mind, I didn’t remember half of what happened, but I sure as fuck felt it when it stopped. Everything hurt. My muscles, my joints, my heart, my soul. When I finally exhausted myself physically, I collapsed in a sweaty heap on the floor and sagged against the kitchen wall to catch my breath.
“Boss.” Milo slid down next to me. “You okay?”
With my elbows on bent knees, I hung my head between my legs and ran a hand across the back of my damp neck. “No, I’m not fucking okay.” I was goddamn drained. Lack of sleep, the images from the seemingly untraceable videos that never seemed to stop showing up in my inbox, the constant searching that came up empty day after fucking day… No. Okay was not a word in my vocabulary right now.
Revenge. Death. Torture.
Those were the words on the tip of my tongue every minute of every day. Ten fucking days since she was taken from my arms. Ten days of terrifying videos of the walking dead man hitting, punching, and groping my Miri. His newest thing was to cut off her clothes with a fucking knife and beat her naked body. There wasn’t a single inch of her skin that wasn’t a nauseating shade of black and blue. But goddamn, I was so proud of my doll. She never stopped fighting. Physically, she might have given in, but I could see it in those green eyes of hers. Miri was still there, as fiery as ever.
Hold out for me, baby. I will get you.
The front door flew open and heavy footsteps thundered down the hall. Milo leapt to his feet, his massive pistol in his hand and aimed at the doorway to the kitchen.
“Jesus, fuck. You goddamn morons,” Milo growled. He stuffed his hand cannon back into its holster and leaned against the granite countertop. “Announce yourself next time or you’ll end up with your brains all over the wall.”
I forced my weary body to my feet as three of my men, Shade, one of Shade’s guys from the warehouse, and One, my best area dealer, entered the kitchen. The large space suddenly seemed small, what with me and Milo, and now the three of them standing around the kitchen table. None of us were exactly small. Five of us in one room were a little overwhelming.
“What’s going on?” I asked. My eyes met each of theirs and what I saw had my heart leaping into my throat and flutters assaulting my stomach.
Shade grinned. “We think we found Cuchillo, Boss.”